PSYC100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Patricia K. Kuhl, American Babies, Joint Attention
1 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
➢ Theories of Language Development
■ Patricia Kuhl
● How nature interacts with nurture
● Learn language by observing it, not be treats
● Argues that the nature component of it is that we come
biologically prepared with general cognitive skills
◆ First general ability is to perceive differences
across different things (colors, faces, etc.)
◆ Becoming an experiment in the language is a
general skill that is shaped by the environment by
social interactions between others
● Parentees- not nonsense babbling
◆ Produces oxytocin
◆ Babies pay attention to what is going on in social
interactions and what sounds are being said
(observational learning)
◆ Help children learn language
◆ 3 specific features- together help babies distgunus
important sounds and create statistics for which
sounds they need for their native language
➢ Particularly high pitch across cultures
(squeaky)
➢ Slow tempo and pace
➢ Exaggeration of phony sounds
◆ Use of parentese increases their ability to receive
vocab and speak it and read and write
➢ Associated with later language development
◆ Can distinguish between sounds better
◆ Receptive (receive vocab/understand it) and
productive (vocab we speak) vocab
● Ted talk conclusion:Takes a human being for babies to
make statistics
◆ Took american babies and randomly assigned
them into 4 groups
➢ In person sessions exposed to just english
(control group)
➢ In person exposed to mandarin sounds
➢ Exposed to chinese through tv
➢ Exposed to mandarin chinese sounds
through audio
➢ All exposed to mandarin chinese sounds
➢ Only one group improved their ability to
discriminate mandarin chinese sounds
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
➢ TV and audio- still exposed to language
sounds- no improvement in distinguishing
sounds-screens attractive to many kids;
joint attention component is missing-can’t
share same experience
➢ In-person- eye-contact, forming attachment
bonds/eye gaze behavior, increases amount
of oxytocin
■ Joint attention- Where we are
looking and paying attention
together; making sure we are on the
same page; pointing to something
and the other person immediately
looking at it
◆ Clicker question: american infants who are only
exposed to american english sounds are doing
better at distinguishing american english
sounds=perceptual broadening
◆ Japan babies only exposed to japanese sounds are
exposed to american english sounds are getting
worse at this because they don't need= perceptual
narrowing
■ Clicker review question:
● Look at graph depicting ability to distinguish between
human faces of another race (other than primary
caregivers), youngest (0-4.5 months) have greatest ability,
then middle (5-7.5 months) then oldest (8-11 months)
◆ Perceptual narrowing- narrow things we don’t need
in our given environment, see this early in life, see
early on human faces and specific characteristics
● Outgroup effect- you see the outgroup as all the same,
perceptually get worse at distinguishing faces not familiar
with
● Research for urban vs rural babies, what happens early in
life and implications
➢ Doctor Lewkowicz Ted Talk eye tracking studies: at first 4 months of age
(lots of plasticity) babies are looking primary at the eyes, at 8-10 months
babies look primary at the mouth and lip read and imitate new way to
manipulate their mouth and babble, at 12 months babies are shifting
focus back to eyes because adults do that, and these babies develop
their expertise for their native language, at about 1 year babies become
experts and have perceptual broadening, adults predominately look at
each others eyes when speaking, eye gaze tells info about relationships
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Learn language by observing it, not be treats. Argues that the nature component of it is that we come biologically prepared with general cognitive skills. First general ability is to perceive differences across different things (colors, faces, etc. ) Becoming an experiment in the language is a general skill that is shaped by the environment by social interactions between others. Babies pay attention to what is going on in social interactions and what sounds are being said (observational learning) 3 specific features- together help babies distgunus important sounds and create statistics for which sounds they need for their native language. Use of parentese increases their ability to receive vocab and speak it and read and write. Receptive (receive vocab/understand it) and productive (vocab we speak) vocab. Ted talk conclusion:takes a human being for babies to make statistics. Took american babies and randomly assigned them into 4 groups. In person sessions exposed to just english (control group)
